This past Tuesday and Wednesday looked a little bit different for the 10 of us here in Nondcupca. We went to school in a nearby village to teach English and run an English Camp for two days. It was a little bit nerve-wracking because we each had to run our own classes, and do 5 half-hour sessions where different classes rotated through. On our first day, I taught some fun emotions: happy, sad, scared, surprised, tired, angry and excited. By the end of the day, we all found that we’d really enjoyed teaching the kids.
We also did a short program with everyone in the big open room where the school holds assemblies. We sang some fun songs and performed the Good Samaritan for them, also explaining some of the meaning. At first, we weren’t sure if it was alright to share a story from the Bible, considering that most of the teachers and students here were probably Buddhist. The saying is, “to be Thai is to be Buddhist.” But the story went over well and we found out that the next day, when we were to come back, we had two half-hour segments with all the kids and we had free reign to say whatever we wanted.
So on Wednesday we went back, taught our five sections each of different English lessons, and prepared ourselves for the afternoon assembly. Mom had gone with us and we did a presentation of the gospel using 5 different colors. Yellow for Heaven, Black for Sin, Red for the Blood of Christ, White for being Clean and Green for New Life. We had signs written in English and Thai and mom shared the gospel message with everyone there in their native language.
At the end of the day, it was obvious that all the students and teachers and even the administrators were so grateful that we had taken the time to come. They gave us all small gifts as well as a certificate for participating in the English Camp. But it wasn’t until we arrived home that night that we learned what had really happened during the day.
There were several administrators from other schools there who had spent time talking to mom while we were teaching class. They knew that she had housed teams in the past who spoke English and were probably likely to house teams in the future. They told her to call them up when a team came and to bring them to teach English at their schools as well. But not only could they teach English, these teams would also have free reign to share the gospel with the students. Past teams have been denied this opportunity and mom has been praying for years that doors like this would open up in this province.
One man even told mom that he noticed the difference between Christians and Buddhists. Buddhists do good things to “make merit” and further their own lives, it’s all out of selfish reasons. And he had noticed and observed that Christians do things out of love and genuinely wanting to help other people.
As Katie told us this story over dinner, I felt as if we had been placed in this village for this day – to really push open the doors for future teams to come in and change these villages with the gospel.
It’s going to start here, with these people.
God is moving.
He’s making a way.
